


electric nerves communicate

by somehowunbroken



Series: tonight, tonight [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017 Memorial Cup, Anxiety Attacks, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 20:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10951773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken
Summary: It's the night before their first game of the Memorial Cup. Dylan… might be freaking out. A little. Not much.





	electric nerves communicate

**Author's Note:**

> am i writing good luck fic for the otters game? MAYBE.
> 
> thanks to ari for looking this over <3 <3
> 
> title is from ["they stood up for love"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ENdlHcWDPY) by live!

Dylan… might be freaking out. A little. Not much.

"Breathe," Alex orders sternly. He's on the other bed in the hotel room, dicking around on his phone. Or he had been, at least; now he looks like he's preparing to throw it at Dylan or something. "Dylan. Deep breath. Shallow breath, even. Any breath."

Dylan tries to make a face at him, but moving at all makes his chest seize a little. His mouth falls open and he almost gasps with it, and it makes a weird croaking noise in the room.

Alex drops his phone and pushes off the bed in the same motion, face going from faintly mocking to super concerned before he comes to a stop in front of Dylan. "Hey, hey," he says, resting his hands on Dylan's knees. "Were you actually holding your breath there? That was a figure of speech, man, what's going on?"

It makes Dylan shake his head a little, pulling in another breath, longer and deeper this time. It shudders in his chest a little, and he wonders briefly if he's going to choke or cough or something equally ridiculous. It's breathing. He's been successfully doing it for twenty entire years, and suddenly it's like he's forgotten how to do it.

"In and out," Alex says, grabbing Dylan's wrist. "Come on, Dyls. Watch me, okay? Like this." He takes a deep, exaggerated breath; his chest puffs out with it, and then he lets it out slowly. He does it again, then again, and Dylan mirrors him until his own breath feels less like it's rattling around in his chest.

It takes a few minutes, or maybe it takes an hour; Dylan's a little dizzy with it, and time sort of stretches and expands when he gets like this. Not that he has a lot of experience with it, thankfully, but enough to know that yeah, he's having an anxiety attack, and yeah, it's a good thing that Alex is here, or he'd end up in a shivering, sweaty ball in the middle of his bed for the next few hours.

Experience is one hell of a teacher, is all Dylan's saying.

"You breathing okay?" Alex asks after however long it's been. He's still standing in front of Dylan, still taking exaggerated breaths that have to be hurting his ribcage. "Shake your head yes or no for me if you're not up for talking?"

"I'm okay," Dylan croaks out. He feels like he's been breathing dry air, even though it's humid enough in Windsor that it's not actually true. "Water, please?"

Alex nods and squeezes Dylan's wrist lightly before taking a step back. He doesn't hesitate to walk into the bathroom, and Dylan hears the tap turn on, the sound of water filling one of the small coffee cups from the Keurig. Alex reappears a minute later, holding it out to him.

"Not too cold," he says as Dylan takes it from him. He sits on the bed beside Dylan after the cup exchange is made. "I didn't want you choking on it because it was a weird temperature."

Dylan drinks it quickly without gulping it down. He feels like he could down another ten cups, but he also feels calmer. Steadier.

"Thanks," he says when he finishes, putting the cup on the bedstand. "I--thanks."

Alex hums a little, and Dylan turns to look at him. His eyebrow is raised, just a little. "Wanna talk about it?"

Dylan can feel his face flushing. "It's nothing."

"You don't panic like that over nothing," Alex says, _take no bullshit_ mode clearly engaged. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to, but don't try to tell me nothing's wrong."

"Okay, then it doesn't make sense," Dylan mumbles. 

"It's allowed to not make sense," Alex says. He sighs a little, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. "I'm your A, Dyls, and I'm also dating you. Both of those things mean it's okay to lean a little bit. Don't sing," he warns as Dylan grins a little. "I love you, but not that much."

Dylan closes his eyes and leans. It's not what Alex had meant and he knows it, but he doesn't complain even though Dylan's a full eight inches taller than him. He just puts an arm around Dylan's waist and shifts a little so they don't topple over, and honestly, Dylan's so glad he's got Alex.

"I don't want to lose," he mumbles. It's easy to let slip like this, alone with Alex in the quiet of their hotel room. It eases something in his chest to say it, as if sharing it made it easier to deal with. "Not tomorrow, not the day after, not the last game."

"We won't," Alex says, with the confidence of someone who isn't actually afraid of losing.

Dylan shakes his head almost violently. "Don't. Don't promise me that here, not--I'm not one of the guys who need a pep talk."

"Hey," Alex says, jostling him a little. Dylan opens his eyes, and when he turns to look, Alex is peering closely at him. "What's this about?"

"Davo's here," Dylan says, words tumbling out before he can try to yank them back in. "And my family, and all these scouts. And you," he says, looking at Alex. "You and the rest of the guys. I don't want to let anyone down."

Alex blinks a few times, clearly startled. It's not that Dylan never shares his feelings; he's pretty in touch with them, all told, but he tries to keep most of the staticky panic locked in the back of his head where it can't affect his day-to-day life. He bounces back quickly, though, because that's what Alex does.

"You're right, that _doesn't_ make sense," he says matter-of-factly. "Unless you go out there in a nightgown and a baton, Dyls, you're not gonna let us down."

Dylan swallows past the crackling feeling in his throat. "Against Oshawa--"

"It was the whole team," Alex cuts in. "That was not on you. And every single person on this team is better now. We're _here_. And we dominated all the way through."

It's true and Dylan knows it; one of the shittier things about anxiety, though, is that knowing something as a fact doesn't mean that your brain _believes_ that fact. He just nods, but it makes Alex's frown deepen.

"It wasn't your fault then, and if we don't score a single goal while we're here, that won't be your fault either," he says, looking Dylan straight in the eyes. "We are a team. Everything that happens out there is on all of us."

"But," Dylan says.

Alex reaches both hands out and claps them on Dylan's cheeks, pushing slightly. It makes his lips purse as his face squishes together. "No," Alex says sternly.

"Davo," Dylan tries.

Alex pushes harder. "Double no," he says. "He's so fucking proud of you, y'know? He knows how good you are, and he's not afraid to tell people about it. You're the first person he talked about during his intermission interview."

Dylan tries to reply, but he's pretty much making a fish face thanks to Alex's hold on him. He raises an eyebrow until Alex relents and lets go of his face. "How do you know what was on the interview?" he asks.

Alex rolls his eyes. "How many guys do we know in this league? I asked around." He grins. "Never pass up the chance to figure out if someone said something super embarrassing."

It makes Dylan laugh a little, then sigh. "I just don't want," he starts.

"Dylan," Alex cuts in. He looks like he's considering clapping his hands back on Dylan's cheeks. "I am dead serious right now. I know you're gonna go out there and play your ass off, and because I know that for an absolute fact, I am really, really confident when I say that you're not going to let anyone down, win or lose." He spreads his hands out. "Look how far you've gotten this team, Captain."

Dylan closes his eyes. "Brinks."

"Stromer," Alex replies. Dylan hears his hands drop into his lap. "Do you want, like, a card? Everyone signs something that says _I don't hold Dylan Strome accountable for everything that goes wrong on the ice_? Because everyone would sign it."

It makes Dylan open his eyes and smile. "Half the team is terrified you're going to turn feral and go on an ankle-biting spree. Nobody wants to get on your bad side."

"You're hilarious," Alex says, but there's a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Also, that's a power I value a lot. Since you're a tree-person, I don't expect you to understand."

Dylan laughs a little, and Alex looks immensely pleased with himself. "Okay," Dylan says, falling back against the pillows. "Okay, fine. You've convinced me." It's not that simple and they're both aware of it, but it's easier than saying _I think I'm calm enough to sleep now_. "Sleep time?"

"Sleep time," Alex says, climbing up to the top of the bed. He wriggles under the covers, then looks expectantly at Dylan. "Are you gonna sleep with no covers?"

"Nah, just enjoying the amazing display of grace that you were showing off there," Dylan says dryly, getting off the bed and then slipping under the covers like a normal human being.

"You love me anyway," Alex says cheerily, moving over until he's arranged himself to his liking along Dylan's side.

Dylan reaches out to switch the lamp off, then turns to press a kiss to Alex's hair. "Yeah, guess I do."

-0-

His visit with Connor is brief; they grab coffee in the morning, before practice and before Connor has to leave to shoot his commercial or whatever. Alex is barely awake; he takes sips from his double-double on autopilot, taking breaks only when Dylan hands him a bite-sized bit of muffin. He needs to be watched kind of carefully, or he'll definitely choke on gross, soggy muffin.

It's a good visit, even if it's short. Dylan's hoping they can find a few days over the remainder of the summer to get together, because most days he's fine but some days he misses Connor like a phantom limb, something he hadn't known was even there until suddenly it wasn't. He's not looking forward to when he and Alex are in the same position; he loves Connor, but Alex is his _Alex_.

"You guys have been so great this year," Connor says as their visit winds down. "I wish I could've caught more of your games than I did, but you guys were so awesome." He smiles, the wide, happy smile that had always made Dylan feel like he'd won some sort of competition. "I know this is, like, really cheesy, but I'm so proud of all of you."

"But especially Dylan," Alex says, startling Dylan a little. He turns, and Alex smiles at him like he hadn't been mostly a zombie a minute before. "Right, Davo?"

It makes Connor laugh, the soft, carefree sort of thing that's definitely not for the media. "Well, duh," he says, rolling his eyes a little. "I'm proudest of Dylan. Who wouldn't be?"

Alex takes a very, very smug sip of his coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> -am i gonna do this for every game? who knows, honestly. i had no plans to write this, and then suddenly it was written.
> 
> -consider this connected to the other dylan/brinksy fic i wrote last week. if i end up writing more, i'll probably put them in a series, but for now... they're related!
> 
> -[follow me on tumblr](http://somehowunbroken.tumblr.com) for hockey and memes. sometimes hockey memes.


End file.
